Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

deep breaths," said Silence. "Vomiting inside a hard suit is not a good idea."
    "I'm all right," said Stelmach angrily. "I can handle it."
    "It was a good question," said Cross. "What kind of creature would feed like this?"
    "Practically anything," said Frost. "If it was hungry enough. The thoroughness is interesting, though. They didn't just go for the fat and the muscle; they took everything. That's unusual. More commonly, different species feed off different parts of the body… Maybe the attackers killed her first, and then something else came along afterward, and fed off the body."
    "There are no living things anywhere on this planet," said Cross. "Unless the
    attackers brought something with them."
    "Still think this was cabin fever, Captain?" said Stelmach.
    "I'm not ruling anything out yet," said Silence calmly. "This is looking more and more like an alien attack, I agree, but we still have no hard evidence that anything other than humans were ever here. Remember, the Hadenmen are loose again. And there's always Shub and its Furies. Investigator, could the tissues taken from this body have been intended for study, rather than food?"
    "Quite possibly, Captain. It would explain the thoroughness."
    "This can wait," Silence decided. "I want this whole Base checked out, floor by floor. There'll be time for questions and hypotheses after we're sure this place is secure."
    He gestured sharply to the marines. With Frost in the lead the party moved on deeper into the Base, weapons at the ready. Things grew worse the further in they got. There was destruction everywhere, and more partial bodies. Doors had been torn out of door frames, holes punched through walls, instruments wrecked, the pieces scattered to no apparent purpose or pattern. Every room had been torn apart and wrecked, but nothing obvious had been taken. The number of bodies mounted steadily. The amount consumed or taken varied, but the heads were always left intact apart from the brains, leaving so many silently screaming faces.
    Silence felt a slow core of cold anger building within him. This wasn't an attack, it was a slaughter; and he swore silently to every new dead face that he would take a bloody revenge for them all.
    Frost just seemed increasingly interested, but she was an Investigator, after all. Cross said very little, except to comment on the increasing destruction and identify the occasional face in a choked voice. Stelmach had nothing to say, but
    kept very close to the others. The six marines maintained their defensive perimeter, checking every open doorway and turn of the corridor with trained weapons. Tension built inexorably as the away team moved on through the darkness, their only light what they had brought with them. Shadows loomed and danced; the only sound was the dull thuds of steel boots on the floor and their own increasingly harsh breathing. No one felt like talking much. There was still no trace of any actual alien, but broken swords lay discarded here and there, shattered on something harder than steel, and there was more damage to walls and floor and ceiling from discharged energy weapons. Here and there great holes had been punched through the thick steel walls, as though by some incredible force.
    Silence couldn't have done it, even with all the strength of his powered armor.
    The last creature he'd seen capable of such a feat had been the genetically engineered aliens he'd discovered sleeping in the vaults on Grendel. The thought disturbed him, so he kept it to himself, for later. And everywhere they went, the water came down in an endless rain, as though trying to wash away what had happened.
    On the second floor Frost stopped suddenly and knelt down, shining her lights onto something on the floor. The others crowded around her, adding their lights to hers. The Investigator studied the pool of dark liquid thoughtfully and then stirred it slowly with a steel finger. It was a thick, sticky liquid that tried to cling to her finger when she pulled it away. She had to shake her hand hard to get it free.
    "What is it, Investigator?" said Silence finally.
    "Too early to say, Captain. I've seen smaller splashes of it here and there, but with nothing to suggest what it is or where it came from. But it looks organic."
    "Alien blood?" said Cross.

    "Maybe," said Frost uncommittedly. "I'll take some samples, and the Dauntless labs can run tests on it."
    "Follow full quarantine procedures," said Silence. "Just in case."
    "Of course,